title: Concepts, measurements and scientific problems of biocomplexity.
abstract: There is increasing awareness of biocomplexity as a field of study, although there are some disagreements about its definition among biologists. The science of biocomplexity has been influenced greatly by the emergence of the science of complexity, which aims to solve complicated problems in complex systems. In this paper, I review the basic concepts and scientific problems of biocomplexity. I argue that biological systems are adaptive complex systems that tend to become more complicated over time. I hypothesize that complexity is favored by natural selection. There are two relatively independent evolutionary templates for complexity in biological systems: gene-guided and neural-guided systems. In general, biology has been overly influenced by gene-dominant evolution theory, which cannot account for the complex behaviors, social structures, and ecosystems that exist. Sustained energy intake, non-polynomial (NP)-hard problems and stability (e.g. thermodynamic, non-linear and evolutionary stability) are probably the three most important properties of biological systems. Total work is not equivalent to the energy input (non-equivalence rule) in biological systems because the input energy is re-used. The total work can be measured using the order energy (ordergy), a function of energy input and the efficiency of energy transformation. Hierarchy may be essential in solving NP-hard problems and in reducing the instability of non-linearity in biological systems.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Zhibin
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhang